Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Standing Desk #2

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about turning my writing desk into a standing/balance ball work station. While I enjoy working from my writing desk, it's small size is sometimes limiting.  It's hard to read a book for instance and take notes on my laptop, for instance.  So this past week, my husband and I have been sharing my our other desk in our office.  Again, until I've worked standing into my regular routine and have been doing more working while standing than sitting for a couple of months I don't want to spend money on building a workstation.  This is what I came up with in the meantime:
It's not perfect - I have to step over from reading to typing - but it allows me to spread out my various materials more easily as I'm doing research, and it's easy to disassemble when I'm done working.  At this point I'm working while standing or sitting on the balance ball about a third of the time that I'm working (some days more, but some days - like yesterday when I spent a couple of hours working at a coffee shop - less).  Since I'm currently tapering, I don't want to stand too much more than that until after the marathon.  I'm hoping to increase the amount of time I'm standing to at least 75% of my work time by the end of the summer.  If I've succeeded in doing that, I'll start looking into upgrading from cardboard boxes and textbooks.
Now, having said that, I better get my ass off the couch and head to the gym and then put in some hours of working while standing....
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8 comments:

  1. RadMay 24, 2011 at 1:17 PM

    Way to creatively commandeer the hutch.  I am seriously thinking about spending the cash on a new desk because my monitor stand isn't as secure as yours.  Good luck with the tapering!

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  2. RaquelitaMay 24, 2011 at 4:44 PM

    Thanks!  I do love to commandeer things.  I firmly believe that having a quality desk is worth the money since they are so necessary in our academic lives.  

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  3. LisaMay 25, 2011 at 8:15 AM

    very interesting.

    we're trying to reconfigure a new desk in our office after the old one collapsed.  I just know that it takes a bit of fiddling to get things right 

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  4. AM-GoalsfortheWeek!May 25, 2011 at 9:12 AM

    Hi!
    It took me about 4 times to figure out the desk concoction. now i get it! like your thinking and hope you get it streamlined to make it work for you both.

    that's a feat in itself!

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  5. Katherine MartinMay 25, 2011 at 11:02 AM

    Thanks for the update, I'm interested to follow your transition. I've been trying to sit on a balance ball about 1/2 the time and to take some walking breaks, maybe it's time to try and create a standing desk situation!

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  6. RaquelitaMay 25, 2011 at 11:52 AM

    The balance ball and walk breaks sound good!  I still fall of my balance ball every third time that I am sitting on it to do work....  

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  7. RaquelitaMay 25, 2011 at 11:52 AM

    Yikes!  Collapsing desks are never good.  

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  8. GracieMay 25, 2011 at 8:44 PM

    Working in pharmacy = automatic standing desk  ;-)

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